IMPROVING THE AVAILABILITY OF ISSN – A
Joint Project Presented by
Gaëlle Béquet, International ISSN Centre/CIEPS and Laurie Kaplan, ProQuest
November 6, 2015
How the project came to be
The pilot project with the Netherlands ISSN Centre
Refinements to the process and lessons learned
Benefits to the community
Ongoing work and future plans
Questions and answers
Agenda
How the project came to be - TimelineQ3
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Both ISSN Register and Ulrich’s rely on complete and trustworthy bibliographic metadata: sharing information between the two databases was possible
There is an ongoing cooperation between ISSN US and ProQuest which was awarded ALA ALCTS Outstanding Collaboration Citation in February 2015: we could consider reinforcing the partnership
ProQuest receives direct information from publishers that ISSN network may miss
ISSN IC wants the Register to be as complete as possible as far as scholarly publications are concerned
Impetus for both organizations
Project participantsGaëlle BéquetSimona RizzaNathalie CornicPierre Godefroy
Laurie KaplanEwa KowalskaYvette Diven
Adriaan LemmenSaskia van Renswoude Jessica Endert
After the 2014 Charleston Conference the Ulrich’s team conducted research using the Ulrich’s database◦ Ran reports on active titles, print or online, without ISSN
distribution by content type (academic/scholarly, trade, etc.) distribution by serial type (journal, magazine, newsletter, etc.) distribution by country (selected target countries)
◦Worked with our Product Management team to enumerate the benefits to the Ulrich’s products and our clients to determine which metadata elements to include with each record
◦ Talked with our management and legal team about a possible cooperative arrangement and a pilot project
Ulrich’s team discusses the issue
Stats by Content type
Stats by Serial type
Stats by Country
Internal ProQuest discussions
Field names from Ulrich’s Database and Corresponding Marc fields◦ Title (including subtitle if applicable) (fields 222, 245 & 246)◦ Language (field 008 & 041)◦ Country (field 044)◦ Date of publication (if already published) (field 008)◦ Status (Active or Announced for publication) (field 008)◦ Media Type (e.g. print or online) (field 007)◦ Link to other medium (field 776) (PQ Related Serials)◦ Serial Type (e.g. journal, bulletin, etc.) (field 008)◦ Title history (fields 780 & 785)◦ Frequency (field 008)◦ Publisher (field 260)◦ Publisher address and/or email address (field 260)◦ Publisher city/country (field 260)◦ Corporate author (fields 710/720)◦ Open Access Indicator (field 856)◦ Journal Website (field 856)
Metadata elements shared
Once the pilot project agreement was completed the representatives from ProQuest and from the ISSN IC met via phone to set expectations and finalize logistics
Data was collected and the first 200 active (or forthcoming) titles, print or online, from the Netherlands without ISSN were sent to the IC in an Excel spreadsheet
The initial set contained only titles from Ulrich’s that were Academic/Scholarly and were mostly monographic series, about 15 journals, and a few bulletins, proceedings, and reports
The pilot project with the Netherlands ISSN Centre
Sample from Ulrichsweb™ Active academic/scholarly print and online records
from the Netherlands without ISSN
Pilot project and ongoing cooperation between the International ISSN Centre based in Paris and ProQuest began in February 2015
Purpose◦ Identify active titles without ISSN using Ulrich’s Periodicals Database as the
initial resource◦ Assign ISSN to those records where appropriate
Under the supervision of the International Centre, national ISSN Centers determine whether the ISSN is simply missing, or has never been assigned
Desired outcome of the project ◦ To benefit to librarians, publishers, and vendors◦ More titles will have ISSN registered with national centres and in the ISSN
Register◦ Ulrich’s Periodical Database will have more records with ISSN◦ Electronic loading and matching of titles based on ISSN will be improved
Pilot overview
220 titles with missing ISSN were processed first by the ISSN IC comparing them with the ISSN Register
182 titles were thus forwarded to ISSN Netherlands for further investigation; they were mostly monographic series
ProQuest and the IC met to discuss questions coming from the Netherlands ISSN Center
Progress during the pilot
Terminology was clarified, especially around title history, former titles, and related serials
Part of the first batch was returned by ISSN Netherlands and further analysis was done by the Ulrich’s team◦ 97 ISSN returned in the file were added to Ulrich’s database◦ This led to more clarifications and additional records being
pulled from Ulrich’s that were not Academic/Scholarly – about another 80 records that were Trade or Consumer titles
Progress during the pilot (cont.)
ProQuest prepared a second set of 74 titles using the following criteria: ◦ Country of Publication: Netherlands◦ Status of publication: Active◦ Media/format type: Print, Online◦ Serial Content type: Trade (instead of Academic/Scholarly) ◦ ISSN: missing
The level of overlapping with the ISSN Register was still low Lesson learned: If ISSN is missing in Ulrich’s title record it is most
likely that it has not been assigned because Ulrich’s editors always check ISSN Portal when creating a new title record
It proves the opportunity of our partnership to enhance the quality of both databases!
Extension of the pilot
Refinements to the process: monographic series
Refinements to the process: monographic series
Refinements to the process: monographic series and proceedings
Telecommunications technology & application series / Kluwer Academic Publishers : ISSN 2452-3577 assigned
Proceedings of the second European conference on computer-supported cooperative work (ECSCW ‘91) / Kluwer Academic Publishers : ISSN 2452-3565 assigned
Refinements to the process: journals
Refinements to the process: journalsYou searched ISSN database - ISSN 15602133
ISSN 1560-2133
ISSN-L 1560-2133
Medium Regular print
Key Title Asian journal of ophthalmology (Print)
First or current publisher Hong Kong: Scientific Communications
Current or last publisher Amsterdam : Kugler Publications
Country of publication NETHERLANDS
Dates of publication 1998 / 9999 current
Frequency Annual
Type of publication Periodical
Language English
Title script Basic roman
Title proper Asian journal of ophthalmology.
Abbreviated key title Asian J. ophthalmol. (Print)
Universal Decimal Classification 617.7 15th Dutch ed.
Other Edition Entry Yazhou yanke zazhi [ISSN 1991-2102]
Additional Physical Form Entry Asian journal of ophthalmology (Online) [ISSN 2452-0691]
ISSN Centre Netherland
Refinements to the process: journalsYou searched ISSN database - ISSN 24520691
ISSN 2452-0691 ISSN-L 1560-2133
Medium Computer remote Key Title Asian journal of ophthalmology (Online)
First or current publisher Amsterdam : Kugler Publications
Country of publication NETHERLANDS
Dates of publication 2011 / 9999 current
Frequency Annual Type of
publication Periodical
Language English Title script Basic roman
Title proper Asian journal of ophthalmology. Universal Decimal
Classification 617.7 15th Dutch ed.
URL http://www.asjoo.com/index.php/AsianJO Additional
Physical Form Entry
Asian journal of ophthalmology (Print) [ISSN 1560-2133]
ISSN Centre Netherland
One lesson that was learned was that it takes a considerable amount of time to research a title◦ Research in the ISSN Register◦ Research on the publisher site◦ Research on the open web
Scarcity of resources created difficulties at the Netherlands ISSN Center regarding deadlines
Daily work suffers when staff focus on the project◦ Discussions in the last month or two have included the
possibility of hiring an intern to help with the daily Netherlands ISSN work
Lessons learned
ProQuest has experience with this type of set-up with their employee in the Library of Congress
The process to hire an intern is complicated by geographic distance
ProQuest’s UK office is helping to set up the parameters of the internship◦ They will verify if there are any different laws in the Netherlands
leading to changes from the UK internship◦ ProQuest has an office in the Netherlands enabling a PQ staff person
to be a resource for the intern and to discuss the plan for the work◦ The intern will be jointly managed by the Netherlands ISSN Center
and the ProQuest Ulrich’s team
Hiring an intern
Publishers who wish to identify their serial publications and incorporate a barcode on the magazine, journal or newspaper for sale via the major retailers
Libraries which use the ISSN as a fundamental identifier for distinguishing between identical serial titles and facilitating checking and ordering procedures, collection management, legal deposit, interlibrary loans etc.
Catalogue databases which use the ISSN as a record control number and can make use of the records on the ISSN register
Documentation centres and databases which handle bibliographic references and use the ISSN for more accurate serials citation, abstracting and indexing services etc.
Subscription agencies who act as intermediaries between publishers and their customers use the ISSN to ensure the correct serial publication is ordered
Academics who wish to cite in full details of publications for research purposes Retailers / wholesalers who use ISSN based barcodes within their own internal
systems in order to assess and control magazine/newspaper circulationCourtesy of British Library (http://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/issn.html)
Benefits to the community
Annual ISSN Directors’ meeting took place Oct. 13-16, 2015◦ Presentation about the partnership with ProQuest to 50 ISSN
directors◦ ISSN Netherlands ready to carry on working with remaining
727 titles provided that ISSN team can receive help (workload estimate: 1 FTE / 9 weeks)
◦ Directors informed about plan to expand geographic coverage
The ongoing work and future plans
Identified countries for the next steps◦ As we move forward beyond the pilot and into the ongoing
project, we will continue with countries in Europe ◦ Possible additional countries will be:
Germany Denmark Ireland Sweden United Kingdom
◦ The choice of countries will be based on the results of statistics pulled from the Ulrich’s database and the bandwidth of the various ISSN Centers, as well as whether ProQuest has a presence in that country in case an intern is needed
Ongoing work and future plans (cont.)
Need to encourage publishers and providers to use assigned ISSN◦ Include on print publications and online on website
Follow the NISO PIE-J Recommended Practice ◦ Include in files delivered to libraries, aggregators, discovery
systems, archives, and so on◦ Provide better access and linking throughout the community
One more important step
Contact information:
Gaëlle Béquet - [email protected]
Laurie Kaplan – [email protected]
Thank you!
Questions?